New funding, educational frameworks needed to create mobile industry powerhouse: MEIC report

Governments need to work more closely with banks, venture capitalists and multinational companies to create a bigger funding pipeline for Ontario’s nascent mobile industry, and collaborate with post-secondary institutions to develop a mobile workforce strategy, recommends a new draft report obtained by Tech Media Reports. The report, commissioned by the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre (MEIC), outlines where the market stands today and ways Ontario can capitalize on its assets and build a world-class workforce. Doing so, it says, will require re-examining Ontario’s funding and educational frameworks. “In order to set the stage for Ontario as a center of excellence in the training of the new mobile industry workforce, we need to also establish best of breed businesses here, and we can only do that by establishing a funding infrastructure that supports, nurtures, and promotes ideas and innovation,” writes the report’s author, Ray Newal, president of Jigsee Inc. A final draft of the report is expected to be released within days. As part of this new approach, Newal recommends the federal and provincial governments broaden their funding mandates to reflect a global perspective. Investors, he says, need to look beyond the limitations of a small Canadian market and finance applications and technologies that meet global and international demands – even if the Canadian market isn’t likely to adopt the technologies. The report also encourages governments to better leverage their financial resources by collaborating more with banks, VCs and multinationals to expand the number of businesses that receive early stage funding. One example it cites is the JumptStart program offered by Research in Motion's Blackberry Fund, which matches investment made by government organizations. Another idea is for banks to collaborate with government funding initiatives to provide low/no-interest lines of credit to entrepreneurs, it adds. "Perhaps assembled this way, a co-operative between banks, government, institutions and VCs might be better able to compete with funding powerhouses that exist in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York and abroad," the report states. Simplifying the process through which entrepreneurs can secure early-stage funding should be another priority, it adds.“In a recent request, made in the process of conducting research for this report, a call to the Canadian-Ontario Business Centre resulted in an email which included links to more than 16 sources of related information and applications. For an entrepreneur to make sense of the funding approach, they need to stop developing, and focus their efforts on navigating through the red tape,” Newal writes. Tackling the education void for mobile technology Ontario is well positioned to become a global centre of excellence for mobile development, but it lacks the proper educational resources, the report notes. Newal says post-secondary institutions offer students few opportunities to focus exclusively on mobile technologies such as smartphone devices and platforms. Stanford University, for example, offers a course on developing iPhone applications. Here in Canada, programs such as the University of Waterloo’s VeloCity, where a small residence has been transformed into a, hopefully, innovative mobile and web technologies hotbed, are a step in the right direction, he adds. The report cautions, however, that “the chances of one school or program being the silver bullet for Ontario’s mobile workforce by offering a crash course in new mobile applications, is slim.” What Ontario needs, it suggests, is a well-coordinated and orchestrated mobile workforce development strategy which spans relevant post-secondary institutions, and focuses on platforms that exist in Asia and abroad - not just Canada. “In instances where students require some degree of training that is outside the scope of their home school, easy access should be provided to supplementary courses within other schools. Institutions such as OCAD (Ontario College of Art and Design) which specialize in advanced forms of visualization and application interface design have already started to lead the charge in this area by providing students with the opportunity to engage in partnerships with faculties at Ryerson, University of Toronto and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology.” The report also recommends that graduating students have access to government grants or investments to continue their development of an application or business concept. Access to funds for relatively unknown start-ups is scarce, making it difficult for young entrepreneurs to develop prototypes. But for smaller and established businesses in the mobile sector there is hope. According to Michele Perras, MEIC manager, the group is “actively seeking new participants and partners” for both membership and potential prototype development. Perras is encouraging interested parties to visit their website: www.meic.ocad.ca. Navigating the mobile lingo MEIC is also spearheading the Mobile Literacy Working Group Project, which aims to help consumers and MEIC stakeholders understand mobile jargon. “It can get pretty overwhelming for an average consumer, and we think we’ll be able to help,” explains Brian Hendry, founder of Cellphonist Inc. and a contributor on the project. Starting later this week, consumers will be able to text the term “MOBILE” to shortcode 333111 and received text messages of common mobile terms, such as “smart phone” or “SMS”. There will be no charge for the messages, which will eventually be available on at www.meic.ocad.ca. “Our goal is to make it easier for somebody who’s in a store, trying to buy a phone. We want them to know the terms, but also MEIC stakeholders who may not be very familiar with all the industry’s technical jargon,” says Hendry. MEIC is led by the OCAD and includes members from several public and private organizations, such as IBM, Quebecor, Yahoo Canada and George Brown College. With funding from the Ontario Media Development Corp. under the Entertainment and Creative Clusters Partnership Fund, the group is now focused on strengthening the relationship between academic and industry while fostering innovation though research, knowledge and three-month long, collaboratively funded, research cycles.

New funding, educational frameworks needed to create mobile industry powerhouse: MEIC report

Broadcast | March 9, 2009

Unlock all the Canadian telecom, broadcasting and digital media news you need.

FREE TRIAL

SUBSCRIBE

Inside The Wire Report

Information

Hill Times Publishing

Get in Touch With Us